The field of what David Benatar aptly calls Analytic Existentialism, that is, the examination of themes traditionally discussed by existentialists with the tools of analytic philosophy, is of growing importance. Many more papers are published in this field every year. In this second edition of Life, Death and Meaning,David Benatar expands on the first edition with additional articles by Bruce Waller on optimism and pessimism, Christine Overall on whether immortality is indeed a benefit, and Benatar himself on suicide. The suggestions for further reading have also been enlarged.

The collection has six parts. The first, dealing with the meaning of life, presents six readings, all of them classics within the modern discussion of the topic, and include contributions by Thomas Nagel, Richard Taylor, Robert Nozick, and David Schmidtz. Schmidtz's original paper, which is partly in dialogue with the papers by Nagel, Taylor and especially Nozick, appeared in the first edition of the collection with an added special postscript that has been revised for this second edition. The second part of the anthology, shorter than the first, discusses whether creating people benefits or harms them, and whether it would be bad if the human race became extinct. This part starts out with Derek Parfit's classic "Whether Causing Someone to Exist can Benefit this Person," continues with articles by John Leslie and James Lenman on extinction, and concludes with an paper by Benatar, "Why It Is Better Never to Come into Existence." Benatar's argument, which has been expanded in his book Better Never to Have Been would seem to many to lead to an unacceptable conclusion. Finding fault in the argument that leads to this conclusion, however, is not easy at all.

Most people believe that it is good to enter into existence and bad to leave it. While the second part questions the former intuition, the third part questions the latter. Many of the papers cope with Epicurus's famous claim that we should not fear death since we can never experience it. When we are alive, we are not dead, and when we are dead, there is no "we" who can experience death or suffer from it. Another classical challenge, by Lucretius, with which some of the articles cope, has to do with the asymmetry between our reaction to our inexistence before we were born and our reaction to our inexistence after we die. Most of us are significantly more bitter about the latter. But is it rational to be so bothered by the latter while hardly ever complaining about the former?

The fourth part, which is the shortest in the collection, discusses another aspect of death: suicide. As Benatar notes, very little analytic work has been done on this topic as related to the meaning of life (more has been written on the topic within the medical and legal contexts). Because of the paucity of modern analytic works on the subject, Benatar includes two classical discussions: by Hume (who believes that there is nothing wrong about suicide) and by Kant (who thinks it is a moral sin). The fifth part discusses a topic that has recently received a lot of attention, and complements the discussions in the third part on the harm of death: is immortality desirable? Bernard Williams writes that he would not opt for it; John Martin Fisher's paper is a reply (and a strong one, I believe) to Williams. James Lenman, like Williams, does not favor immortality, and Christine Overall argues that immortality may be beneficial to the immortal individuals, but if we were all immortal, problems of overpopulation would emerge. The sixth and final part discusses philosophical optimism and pessimism and includes an essay by Schopenhauer as well as three modern papers. All, and especially Margaret Boden's discussion, try to clarify what optimism is—a more difficult task than may at first seem.

Unfortunately, the collection does not include papers on and religion (or faith) and the meaning of life, free will and the meaning of life, and personal identity and the meaning of life. But of course one cannot cover everything in one collection and Benatar explains his decision to omit these topics from the present volume. Among other points, he notes that some of these topics have been less central to the discussion and others have less existential significance than the topics included.

The selection of papers is excellent. Putting together an anthology is not easy. One would like the selected papers to be both representative of the field and balanced across the different positions; yet these two requirements are sometimes in conflict. One would also wish papers not to repeat each other, yet, if possible, to interact. The papers should also be of a high quality yet accessible to their intended audience. Doing all this is difficult in any field, but even more so in an emerging field where the choice of papers is still limited. Benatar has done a first rate job in fulfilling, and when necessary balancing, all these requirements, and has produced an exceptionally good, interesting and informative collection of papers. Students and educated laypersons who read through the anthology will become familiar with some of the best and most representative works in the field which include many of the most central and important arguments on the issues discussed. While the articles are interesting and of a very high academic level, they are not too technical, too long, or otherwise difficult for students or the educated public to follow. Although there are already some anthologies that discuss the meaning of life, none relate the topic to questions of immortality, death, suicide, or the benefit of coming into existence as this one does. As in the first edition, this one too includes a helpful introduction, an index (woefully missing in many anthologies), introductory summaries of each paper (these will greatly assist both students and educated laypersons), useful suggestions of further readings for those who want to deepen their familiarity with the topics, and questions that will help readers to reflect critically on the arguments in the papers, and serve as good starting points for class discussions. This collection should prove to be an important contribution to the development of the discussion on Analytic Existentialism.

Welcome to MHN's unique book review site Metapsychology.
We feature over 7900 in-depth reviews of a wide range of books and DVDs written by our reviewers from many backgrounds and
perspectives.
We update our front page weekly and add more than thirty new reviews each month. Our editor is Christian Perring, PhD. To contact him, use one of the forms available here.

Metapsychology Online reviewers normally receive gratis review copies of the items they review. Metapsychology Online receives a commission from Amazon.com for purchases through this site, which helps us send
review copies to reviewers. Please support us by making your Amazon.com purchases through our Amazon links. We thank
you for your support!